William A. Niskanen: Economist, Scholar, Foe of Political Capitalism

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 11, 2018 3 Comments

[Note: This will be Niskanen Week with forthcoming posts on his views on climate-change science, economics, and public policy. This is particularly relevant with the contradictory policies of the Niskanen Center under its founder and head, Jerry Taylor.]

The longtime chairman of the Cato Institute, William N. Niskanen, passed away in 2011 at age 78. We shared the podium a few times on energy issues, and I admired his Enron project at Cato that resulted in two books, Corporate Aftershock: Lessons from the Collapse of Enron and Other Major Corporations (2003) and After Enron: Lessons for Public Policy (2005).

Like virtually everyone else who knew him, I remember Bill as a scholar and gentleman. He had one tone of voice and reliably imparted insightful logic. He was a scholar’s scholar, a role model for the rest of us.

Contra-Capitalism as a Business Syndrome

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 27, 2018 5 Comments

“Beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism.”

Cronyism … Rent-seeking … Regulatory capture … Special-interest politics … Strategic uses of government intervention … Many terms have described business lobbying within the up-for-grabs socioeconomic system of political capitalism where the political means replaces the economic means. [1] It results in what classical-liberal entrepreneur Charles Koch calls bad profit. [2]

But beyond rent-seeking, a corporation can engage in other behaviors long decried by classical liberals, behaviors that might be characterized as contra-capitalism. Importantly, the corporation might not recognize these behaviors as an explicit strategy (Enron did not; Tesla does not). These separable behaviors are complementary. And now, with a term, what was implicit can become explicit for the public policy and corporate-governance debate.…

Energy Statism: R Street Hits New Low (carbon tax dead, so wind & solar lovefest today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 8, 2018 4 Comments

“R Street continues to live the lie of ‘engag[ing] in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government.’ Pricing carbon dioxide, replete with global tariffs (‘border adjustments’) and tax differentials (‘equity adjustments’), coupled with a government-forced transformation to (not so) ‘clean’ political energies, has nothing to do with classical liberalism, energy freedom, free markets, or limited-and-effective government.”

It had to happen.

With its Left Progressive donors, R Street Institute was going to march down the statist road as one initiative got replaced with another.

Founded in 2012 with climate-alarmist/Left money, R Street tried to shed into new free-market skin by pitching a seemingly soft proposal to substitute new/better government intervention for worse/existing intervention. Specifically, replace existing climate regulation with carbon-dioxide (CO2) tax-and-dividend. That was during the Obama era, assumed to turn into the Hillary era.…

Bradley Posts at IER, Forbes: 2017

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 20, 2017 No Comments

Many readers of MasterResource are undoubtedly aware of the ‘Featured Analysis‘ blogs at the Institute for Energy Research (IER). I blog at IER (my employer) in addition to my MasterResource work.

Below, my posts at the IER website are linked. In addition, my ‘Political Energy‘ posts at Forbes.com are listed as a reference guide. Here are the links to my 2017 work for those interested.

IER Posts

“Kathleen Hartnett White: A Scholar for CEQ” (October 18)

“Scary Sea Level Rise? Check Your Science” (September 8, 2017)

“Al Gore’s Energy Problems” (August 25, 2017)

“Climate Optimism, Energy Realism for the Next Generation” (August 11, 2017)

“Milton Friedman on Energy” (July 31, 2017)

‘Deep Decarbonization’ vs. Direct-Use Natural Gas (July 14, 2017)

“James Hansen’s Failed Ultimatums: A Free Market, Anyone?”…